Japanese rules and the essential dualities of travelling

The politeness here is unbelievable! Everything is elegant and perfectionism is extreme! The rules completely fit that philosophy. No answering phones in the trains, no smoking in the streets (although you can smoke in most bars and sometimes restaurants), trains are on time by the second, people meet for dinner at the precise minute agreed beforehand, etc... The list is infinite...

I'm allergic to too many rules and formality in my every day's life, but here in Japan they don't bother me, probably in the same way the chaos and lack of rules in Vietnam, for example, fascinate me. Here I'm a simple outsider, an observer... When travelling one lets it go and doesn't constantly judge what is around according to the values and preconceptions brought from home. Without this mindset travelling becomes unbearable, with it travelling is the best thing one can live!

The pleasure of travelling is a well balanced mix between difference and similarity, between the known and the unknown, the fulfillment of the expected and the surprise of the unexpected, the comfortable and the uncomfortable, the feeling of accomplishment and the frustration... The similarities keeps one sane, the differences shakes one's ideas about everything... At the end a bunch of new ideas about home and about one self emerge.